KANSAS CITY, Mo.— Senior outside hitter MacKenzie Edwards and sophomore setter Ara Norwood both recorded double-doubles while sophomore transfer Kasie Gilfert chipped in a career-high 16 kills on a superb .394 hitting effort to lead the Colorado Mesa University Maverick volleyball team to a big 5-set (25-18, 21-25, 25-18, 21-25, 15-11) bounce-back win over the previous unbeaten Northwest Missouri State University Bearcats in both teams' second match of the Rockhurst University Classic on Friday here in the Mason-Halpin Field House.
 
The Mavericks, who have now won the night cap on each of their match days of the young season, are now 3-3 overall.  They had dropped an earlier Friday afternoon match to the host and nation's sixth-ranked Hawks in three sets (25-23, 25-19, 25-17).
 
Northwest Missouri State is now 5-1 after defeating William Jewell, 3-0, earlier Friday.
 
Edwards, who took a whopping 68 attempts, finished the match against the Bearcats with a season-high 19 kills while coming up with 10 digs.  Meanwhile, Norwood recorded 25 assists and a career-high matching 13 digs. 
 
Libero Taylor Woods also chipped in 23 digs while freshman setter Hannah Bokal split time with Norwood in the Mavericks' 6-2 offense.  She registered 24 assists and nine digs, the best marks of her young collegiate career.
 
The match was a back-and-forth affair with the Mavericks winning the first and third sets by 25-18 margins to build leads both times.  Northwest Missouri, held to a .117 attack percentage by the Maverick defense, which tallied 10 blocks and a season-high 84 digs, won the second and fourth sets by 25-21 scores.
 
Forced to a decisive fifth set after the second of those Bearcat set wins, the Mavericks built a 8-6 lead at the change-over.  Edwards then put down two of her three fifth-set kills while Ashton Reese and Natalee Todd teamed for a block in a 3-1 spurt that put the Mavericks up 11-8.
 
Todd finished the match with six blocks while Reese had four.
 
With the lead trimmed slightly to 12-10 moments later, Gilfert then had two kills around a Bearcat timeout to give the Mavericks three match points at 14-11.  CMU converted on the first as Reese put down her eighth kill of the match on CMU's first attempt of the rally to close out the victory.
 
The Mavericks hit .333 in the decisive fifth set with nine kills and just two hitting errors on 21 attempts.  They also converted on all but one of 12 side-out opportunities in the frame, which saw Gilfert hit .750 on four swings.
 
Against sixth-ranked Rockhurst, which improved to 5-0 heading into their second match of the weekend against Sioux Falls, the Mavericks finished with a 48-47 edge in digs but were blocked eight times.
 
Edwards led the offensive effort with eight kills.  Gilfert and Katie Scherr, who had 15 digs against Northwest Missouri State, each had seven kills to help lead the Mavericks in the effort.
 
The Mavs will play two more matches at the tournament on Saturday facing Emporia State (1-5) and William Jewell (2-4) at 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. MDT (9 a.m. & 5:30 p.m. Central), respectively.  They then return home to play their first three Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference matches at home in a span of five days, starting Friday, Sept. 7 against CSU-Pueblo.

Editor's Note: Statistics from the Rockhurst match were updated on Sept. 6